French, German and Australian Firms Form New Global VR Group Poised for Expansion, Win Two More Lumière™ Awards
Virtual Content Group (VCG), a conglomerate of international Virtual Reality (VR) companies, formed recently from the merger of France’s Cow Prod, Germany’s INVR.SPACE and Australia’s 3D Content Hub, announced today its launch and winning of two Lumière awards from The VR Society. Utilizing the forming companies’ over 15 years’ experience in developing leading-edge content, VCG will offer production, post-production and licensing services.
VCG has operations spanning thirteen countries and a rights library of nearly eighty VR titles, positioning it to rival the scale of leading American VR companies on the international stage. To date, the company has produced and co-produced more than 150 VR projects. The three respective entities have a long track record and clients in over 40 countries, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Disney, Huawei, Unicef, Sky, Netflix, NBC Universal, Samsung, LG Electronics, Sony and Deutsche
Telekom.
The merger allows VCG to scale faster and serve larger clients with a regional focus on Europe and Asia-Pacific. “VCG is as an international leader in VR,” said Torsten Hoffmann, VCG co-founder and CEO, who has licensed 3D content since 2011. “Building our own IP is core to our business model.” The business, already profitable, will seek Round-A investment in early 2017 and intends to add more partners later this year.
Just three weeks ago, the Lumière™ award for Best European VR Campaign was awarded for VCG’s BMWi and Samsung 360° Experience. “The project included both 3D 360 live-action camera capture and augmented reality (AR),” said Berlin-based Sönke Kirchhof, VCG co-founder. VCG’s French team worked on Les Poissons Volants’ 3D 360 CGI project, Temptation of St.Anthony, which picked up the second Lumière™ award. This short film immerses the viewer into a famous medieval painting by H. Bosch.
In addition to distributing premium VR titles including Titans of Space and Tomorrow VR, VCG is currently developing a wide breadth of high-level projects, including museum installations, co-productions in Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong and Germany and a room-scale VR experience. “We partner with governments, companies and creatives all over the world and are not limited to one camera system or distribution platform,” added Gallien Chanalet-Quercy, VCG co-founder.
About Virtual Content Group (expanded)
Virtual Content Group (VCG) is a leading global VR content company offering end-to-end production, post-production and distribution services. With a background in stereoscopy and 3D, operations spanning thirteen countries and over 50 clients worldwide, VCG is an international powerhouse with a focus on high-end branded content and award-winning factual content. The company has delivered more than one hundred 360-degree videos and virtual reality projects and owns distribution rights to a growing library of over eighty 3rd-party productions. VCG was founded in 2016 as three established companies
from Australia, Germany and France completed a merger:
Cow Prod, based in Paris, has been at the cutting-edge of the production and post-production industry in France since 2000. A 3D content creator since 2004, CEO Gallien Chanalet-Quercy is a member of the board of Advanced Imaging Society Europe as well as a founding member of the 3D Guild. Cow Prod’s VR spinoff was founded based on several client requests for 360 degree production and post-production services and is now integrated into VCG.
INVR.SPACE from Berlin became one of the most experienced German VR production companies by developing interactive VR campaigns for very large corporate clients. CEO Sönke Kirchhof first built 360 degree camera rigs in 2008 and is a board member of Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute’s prestigious German technology cluster “3IT”.
With clients in 40 countries, Australia’s 3D Content Hub is a niche content distributor that has helped filmmakers, independent studios and content producers generate revenues from 3D, UHD, and HDR content. Founder Torsten Hoffmann is considered an international expert in monetizing content in leading-edge formats, now including 360 video content.
The three companies have merged their businesses and re-branded as Virtual Content Group to scale faster and serve larger clients and investors. The firm has a growing base of clients in Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is currently expanding into other territories. Learn more at www.VirtualContentGroup.com and on Twitter @VirtualContentG.
